I refuse to be judged by anyone in a boonie hat.

The Americans, anyway.  Refuse.  Seriously.

So this week was a bit boring, for the most part.  Did the gym thing, did some sleeping, working on winning the war.  Thursday was fun, played some spades and multiple people scooter-ed around the cones set up in the parking lot for what I'm sure was some more important but less cool purpose.  The scooter, btw, is super useful & fun.

The one mis-adventure this week was post-spades.  You know those nites where everything is hilarious?  It was one of those.  So the novelty of having a car of course led to us creeping up behind one of our guys (don't worry, he knows us) and me opening the door (don't worry mom, I wasn't driving) and offering free candy.  Which I'm sure, had he not had to actually go to work, would have totally worked.  While wildy sucessful, we will not be trying this again.  At least not on anybody with a gun.

ALSO I got minions in the mail!  The one with the ray gun is on my desk, and the rest are going to slowly populate the entire office.  The one that looks like he's having a panic attack sits on the ops desk (because, chaos), and evil purple minion is on the office prankster's desk.  Minions will be assigned based on appearance and how well I think they match people's personalities.  Anyone who gets offended will get one of these:

 

I really need to watch House of Cards.  ^^ current favorite gif.

 

later!

 

-S.

It's not Sunday but ya'll wanted pictures.

First off, if you want even MORE fun AFG stories, go here.

A brief depiction of my month in non-work-related pictures:

 IROC mini-reunion!

 

 Crossfit peeps.  No, I'm not in the picture, stop looking.

 

Visitors!

 

Cheeze-its, gun, comso.  That pretty much sums it up?

 

Yoshi waiting at the ID office for his badge.

 

Like a boss.

 

Bea getting artsy.

"You know we're in a war zone, right?"

 

 "That's the best idea I've seen yet!"

"...scooter?"

 



"By the way, the scooter rocks."

"*laughter*"

 

And at least 9 versions of "Wait, you were serious about the scooter?"

 

Spades!  and hummus.

mmmm...hummus.

 

 

So yeah.  I do actually work at least 12 hours a day, but you don't get work pictures because, well, then I'd have to kill you.

 

-S.

"But then, you're wierd sometimes."

“You used to be much more..."muchier." You've lost your muchness.” --Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

Ok, so really I just wanted to quote Alice in Wonderland.  It's got so many good ones!

“But I don’t want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.
"Oh, you can’t help that," said the Cat: "we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad."
"How do you know I’m mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, or you wouldn’t have come here.” 

*ahem* Anyway.  Back to muchness. 

Everything here seems to be so amplified.  The little things make you so much happier, and the dissapointments hit too hard.  And it changes so fast.  In one instant someone can say one thing and you're serious and upset, and in another you're back to your laughing bubbly self because there's a bobble-TARDIS on your monitor (and by you, I mean me. and by bobble-TARDIS, I mean mail came today.  it didn't Friday.  it was tragic.  <-- see what I mean? muchness.).  I think part of it is that, at least in this job, I'm always going, at work, or something, but almost never doing anything.  It's sort of exhausting being always slighty on edge but maintaining a steady level of absolute boredom 10 hours a day.  It makes sense to me that for this reason, people here get big into things like crossfit.  Honestly, it's in the top three parts of my day.  At least I'm doing something, even if it hurts to brush my hair the next day.  Takes the edge off of being on edge.  And I could hear them over the wall tonite while I'm at work til ten tontie and it made me antsy.

Side note: I was asked to re-enlist someone today and I am very dissapointed I won't be able to.  It would have been an honor.

Aaaand those were your deployed feels for the week.

After watching every other country here be allowed to wear civillian PTs, and hating my own, I've come to the conclusion that AF PTs should have a yoga pants option/version for girls.  This would only make people happy.  1) comfy as all get out  2) not shorts 3) makes everybody look good 

There is no losing here, people. 

So, big Air Force, if you have to change something for the sake of change again, make it that.

I have a hard drive with a bunch of TV shows on it now, that I've wanted to watch for ages, and I never seem to actually want to watch them here.  Work, workout, sleep.  During the time between work out and sleep, I just don't have the motivation.  This is not something I expected.

 

Mail came today!  So now I really and truly have a bobble-TARDIS on my monitor, just in time for the "make your desk look presentable" speech from teh Powers That Be.  Such good timing. 

 



"TARDIS on my desk."

^^ actual quote. look it up.

 

Also I got a letter from my roomate's mom.  Bea didn't even warn me, tho apparently her mom writes to all her roomates.  It's very sweet, but at first everyone around (myself included) was like, "Wait, what now?"  I'll write back.  It's gonna start: "Hullo, Bea's mom!"  I'm still working on the rest.

 

That about covers the week I think. This one went fairly fast.  Capt Pistachio went home and Capt Chicken Little got moved back upstairs so I'm in my row alone now.  OH, and I figured out why I kept waking up at 0430.  And I told the guy to find a different way to wake up besides having someone bang on his door like they were trying to wake the dead.  Sheesh.  Actually what I think I told him was "There has to be another way! Find it! Build a better mousetrap!"  I'm not sure why that mousetrap bit came to mind, but it did. And it worked. And sleeping is SO much better now.

 

Also I hope it rains.  I miss rain.  I love the rain.  Even here I think I'd love the rain.

 

much love!

 

-S.



My desk can beat up your desk.

Several people here have asked why I'm so happy all the time (or told me to stop being so happy...). Aside from the fact that they don't see me all the time and are therefore wrong, obviously, I find this theme interesting. Things aren’t that bad here, and I know it. I will have bad days I'm sure. In four months I'll want nothing more than to just get out of here. But I decided..sometime, I don't remember when, that I was going to fix my attitude and that being happy was my choice. Not on my own, because on my own my attitude would probably suck. But I got two pieces of advice, at very different times. The first is "the best job in the AF is the one you have right now." Now let's be honest, that's just not true. But it does make the point that things are what you make of them, and it could always be worse. The second, and more life-applicable, is from a Beth Moore study on the fruits of the Spirit: "Joy is thus a continuous, defiant nevertheless." I'm in Afghanistan, living in a tiny room and working 12s 7 days a week where I'm not allowed to wear civilian PTs and sometimes I totally screw up my job.

nevertheless

My God loves me, and will care for me how I need it (whether I like it or not). Even when I screw it up, get upset, fail epically...

nevertheless

He gives me the grace and peace to take a deep breath and keep on my smile. Calm is an amazing thing. I pray this continues the whole 6 months I'm here, even tho I'm sure I'll have my bad days.

nevertheless

There are all the little things to be grateful for! Like a great roommate and visitors from Camp Eggers who get to visit. Facebook has Minion stickers now, which basically express my every emotion. And care packages which appeal to the 8 year old in everyone.

Which leads us to the highlight of my 15 hour shift and the title of this chapter: my first care package arrived, and people are definitely jealous. In addition to cheeze-its and crayons and Disney princess stickers, Cassie, a brilliant individual, sent me a K'nex Mario Kart Yoshi w/ motorcycle. Which did, in fact, delay the writing of this chapter by thirty minutes. 10 to build it, 20 driving it across desks.

It's ok, it's night shift.

Once Yoshi has completed his warrior photo shoot those pictures will grace this blog. For now he's gonna hang out on my desk and make it more awesome than everyone else's.  And when I add Minions and a TARDIS...

In other news, Army CPTs are weird. At least, mine are. There's one on each side of me, and they're totally different from each other. CPT A is a trauma nurse, who one would think can handle stress, but something always seems to be going totally wrong. Like all the time. And she talks a lot.  On the other hand we have CPT N, who is just confusing. He's friendlier now, most of the time, but still seems surprised when I talk to him. Pistachio update: I got 8 Friday. None Saturday. 6 today. The logic of giving me pistachios, I really don't understand. I mean, there has to be some sort of reasoning, but I can't for the life of me decide what it is. I assume it's a friendly gesture.

I'm also teaching the Colonels that he more info they clue me into, the better I do my job. This leads to me asking a LOT of questions. Poor guys. "You always want so many details!" Yes. I basically want an epic amount of situational awareness. I want to know ALL THE THINGS.

nevertheless...

And with that, the shift is almost over. Here's a cat wearing a top hat.  Because reasons.
 

Hugs y'all.

-S.

"Well sir, the Air Operations Center manages operations in the air..."

Since I have so much down time where I'm required to be at my desk anyway, I'm going to finish both SOS (Squadron Officer School...'how to be a better leader') and my masters while I'm here.

However. Someday people will learn that when they make me write an "introductory" post for an online class, my personality is probably going to actually come through. ahem:

"Hello everyone, I'm Sarah Alford - currently stationed at the Air Force Intelligence Analysis Agency at Bolling AFB and at the moment deployed, where I plan on traveling around base by razor scooter as soon as it gets here. Before DC I lived in the UK for two years and had a great time traveling around Europe and exploring- favorite places were Iceland and Istanbul. I attended a small technical school in Colorado Springs and graduated/commissioned in 2009. I'm originally from Colorado and I think DC is great but way too humid - I miss the English weather and would love to get stationed in the UK again. I like to sing (first soprano) and read -currently I'm reading The Little Drummer Girl by LeCarre. I have a TARDIS on my computer monitor, I play portal mostly to hear the things GLaDOS says, and I have no husband/kids/pets but I do have a giant stuffed frog named Xavier. Also a giant stuffed fish named Greg The Fish."

Make me introduce myself with 150 words. THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS. I'm sure they're super glad now that they asked.

It's pretty much as not "my wife and kids and dogs are awesome and I love the outdoors" as you can get, which is essentially every other intro post. But Xavier is way quieter and less messy than a dog in an apartment anyway.

Things we've learned this week:

- Despite all these gadget-y devices we have, messaging at the speed of internet, some people are really terrible at communicating. But those people DO have a lot of meetings. I'm pretty sure there's a correlation to be drawn there. It's amazing how much we manage to get done when people talk around each other and don't always push the information to everyone who should have it. Although, we used to run wars without any of this (war without email? or powerpoint?!) so I don't know why I'm so surprised.

- After reading through all of Hannah's old posts...Hannah, you are a much better person than I am.

- People who don't like DFAC 1 (the european dining facility) are just silly.

- Chin-ups/chin hangs suck. Like, as much as burpees and wall balls that you take to the face.

- iheartradio works out here! winning.

- It's full daylight here at 0400. not ok.

- Working with the Brits is hilarious, esp when they're trying to describe something. So is working with the Army, kinda, but it's actually way more weird. Quote of yesterday "Well sir, the Air Operations Center manages operations in the air..."

- People here look at you weird when you walk around humming Les Mis songs.

Eventually, these posts will probably get all serious and introspective. But for the moment, they are going to remain an outlet for the randomness I can no longer direct at people during the day. Plus, at least they will answer the, as my sister puts it, "Are you good? Stable? Emotionally sound?" questions. As much as I ever was anyway.

 

For your viewing pleasure, because of the amazing amount of caffeine consumed here.  Some day I'll put up pictures of here, and me, and stuff, but for now you get owls:

 

-S.

 

 

And the award for best July 4th scene in a movie goes to...

With slow days keeping up with this may be a lot easier than I anticipated.

Time is very weird here.  The only reason I know the day is because I have a meeting every Sunday.  And, I've been here 2 weeks already?  On the one hand it seems like I've been here forever but on the other, it can't have actually been two weeks already, can it?  I'm still getting used to the 12s, and so I generally pass out right after crossfit, but I'm hoping soon (before I'm like "I've been here for 6 months?")  I'll be back on a schedule where I'm more used to, and able to take advangtage of all the different people around me.  And do things like, read more than a page before I am woken up by my book falling on my face - first world problems in the third world. 

That's something I think I already knew, but have noticed again - it's easy to live without stuff.  Especially when you haven't got time for it anyway.  Altho I will admit it helps to still be connected.  I think since people are what I miss the most anyway, the ability to get on a computer everyday and say hello in real time or send an email could keep me content even if I couldn't have any non-military necessity items.  I'm still really looking forward to that scooter tho.  So is my entire section, incidentally. 

(side note: I've just been told I sound about 7 years old on the daily adobe brief, so no matter how confident I sound I am going to have to be more forceful.  That's fun.)

It's the 4th of July here, and it's the third in four years I've not spent in America, but I'm ok with that.  I still got Coca-Cola, BBQ ribs, candied yams and apple pie.  And since someone has to be here - it might as well be me. :)  So enjoy it a little extra on my behalf, people!

Wing Commander Bob the Brit sits in front of me, and I've put up a picture of the best 4th of July movie scene ever but he hasn't reacted yet.  For the underinformed, it's from The Great Escape, when they march out with drum and flute and disseminate what has to be the most horrible-but-worth-it homemade drink ever.  If you haven't seen the movie, go fix yourself.  I'll wait.

----

Welcome back.  Don't you feel better now?  You're welcome.  'Merica.

-S.

Chapter 1: In which I write a blog post for the first time ever

Good morning all!  Well, it's morning here anyway.

For those of you who followed Hannah, you probably have zero idea who I am.  For those of you who know me, you're probably shocked, SHOCKED, that I'm attempting to keep a blog to inform the curious as to my adventures at my current digs in Kabul.  But to anyone who wants, you're welcome to read.  Hannah and I decided that I should proabably attempt to keep friends and family at home updated on my physical/mental/spiritual/etc status and that it would be WAY more fun to carry on an old blog than start a new one.

So here we go!  Be prepared for random subject changes, one line paragraphs, and a whole lot of geeky references. 

I've been here a week.  How goes the war, you ask?  DUSTY. It goes dusty.  But it's not bad here at all, and the job is actually useful sometimes :)  The walk to work is fifteen minutes, but there's a plot afoot to get a razor scooter to wander around on.  That's right ladies and gents, I'm going to be THAT Captain.  I'll take pictures.  With my kevlar helmet.

I'm learning lots about the Army, thanks to my changeover babysitter Sgt Justice (great name) and the Captain who sits next to me.  CPT N is not particularly friendly but he does randomly give me a pistachio, and he did smile once. 

This is one of those jobs where everything is happening, or nothing is.  Lately it's been boring, so this morning is making up for it by having all the things go wrong at once.  I do enjoy it when I get the "find the answer to this random question please" stuff.  This job encourages me to do what I enjoy doing: knowing things, figuring things out, and learning people.  It's a very relational job, when you need to know people, how to find them, or need them to give you information. And not hate you when you give them the answer they didn't want (the Turks already think I'm an idiot).  On the plus side, down time means that even tho I can't leave the desk (drat you, you people who can work out during work hours) while I'm here I'll hopefully finish SOS and my masters, and maybe even keep this blog up well.  Past experience has shown I can't keep a journal to save my life.

I'm getting into a routine, which involves work, crossfit, spades, and sleeping as much as possible, so far.  Once I figure out how I broke my phone I'll figure out how to txt people at no one even knows what hour of the nite.  My apologies in advance.

Miss you all!

-S.